I haven’t been everywhere

Yesterday, I re-read this quote on a blog. It’s been a while since I read it. I don’t remember what I thought when I first came across this quote. It could have been yes, I want to go everywhere. Or it could have been, I need a list quick and I want to tick them all off before I am fifty.

But yesterday, I thought of this quote differently. I thought about what I enjoy about travelling. What is it that inspires me?

I realised it is not the goal of having been everywhere.

Instead, I love being inspired. With countries I read about. Photos that seem unreal. And faraway places that surely can’t exist. Even though I remember with fondness climbing the giant sand dunes of the Sahara, losing myself in the lavender fields of Provence or riding the Huskies in the Arctic North, I cannot help but dream of seeing the ruins of Machu Picchu, the giants of the Galapagos Islands and the great wildebeest migration of Africa!

In a sense, I don’t want to have been everywhere. And I don’t want to have a list.

I want to know that there’s always some enchanting pocket somewhere that I have not been. Some place where the history is enthralling and the culture is new. Where Mother Nature shows off her best and the vistas take my breath away. Where words will never be enough. Where all I can think of when I finally get there is just . . . . . wow